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China’s Communist Party
OpinionComment
Hao Zhou
Hao Zhou

As China fights to win US trade war, modern factories are now its weapon of choice

  • Trump’s trade war may well be spurring China’s growth strategy, and was probably the reason for the delayed fourth plenum
  • A modern manufacturing sector seems likely to top the agenda for policymakers, given comments from President Xi and moves to channel capital away from property

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Checks are carried out on robotic arms at a factory producing industrial robots in Zhengyu town, in east China’s Jiangsu province. As China gets ready for a key Communist Party core committee meeting in October, policymakers are likely to increasingly prioritise manufacturing. Photo: AP
Hao Zhou

The Communist Party holds its much-anticipated fourth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee later this month. While this piece of news has been overshadowed by the US-China trade headlines, China watchers should be aware of the importance of this meeting, where the Chinese leadership is likely to outline its new strategy for the next few years, especially on how the country will position itself as the trade war drags on.

In fact, the fourth plenum has been postponed by at least a year, as the meeting was supposed to have been held last autumn. The reason for the delay, although an official explanation has not yet been given, was probably the trade war.
This time last year, trade tensions with the US had started to escalate rapidly, and there was no consensus among top leaders on how China should deal with it. The fourth plenum, in which elite party members gather and outline the strategic blueprint, could have been postponed due to the lack of a solid strategy.

However, US President Donald Trump and the trade war may have somehow helped China formulate a growth strategy for the coming years. And topping the agenda, in my opinion, is modernising the manufacturing sector.

Chinese President Xi Jinping would appear to have revealed this new strategy during a recent visit to a manufacturing firm in Zhengzhou.

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